News

Couple: Mileage Jumped When Car Was Parked At JFK

Related Tags:

NEW YORK (1010 WINS/AP) – One couple who left their car parked in a long-term lot near Kennedy Airport during a trip to California is trying to figure out what their car has been doing without them.

Mimi and Ulrich Gunthart say their car odometer reading jumped by 724 miles while they were out of town. Ulrich Gunthart says he was “flabbergasted” when he saw the number.

“We just couldn’t believe it,” Mimi told 1010 WINS. “We sat there for a good 10 minutes trying figure out if this was true.”

She said they had written down the number that was on the odometer before departing and when they returned “not one” number matched the ones on their paper.

“The odometer does not change unless you driver the car,” Mimi said.

Another surprise: when they returned to the car and started it up, a music CD came on at full volume.

“You could tell that someone had been in the car,” Mimi said.

Mimi insisted that nothing is broken and there are no scratches on the vehicle.

“You leave your car in their care and you pay for it and I think in our case the car didn’t even spend any time in the parking lot looking at the amount of miles,” Mimi said.

David Menter, a regional manager for AviStar parking, says the company investigated and looked over inventory logs but “found nothing out of the ordinary.”

He says there have been no similar claims by other customers, and the company will be reviewing its procedures. The Guntharts say the incident won’t stop them from parking at the lot again.

(TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)